


You call this a world on fire?!

by ravenienne



Category: Daredevil (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Defenders (Marvel TV)
Genre: Blind Character, Blind Foggy, Blindness, Bodyswap, Gen, Hand-wavey-science, Ignores most of MCU canon because I want to, Matt loses his superpowers, Physical Disability
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-24
Updated: 2018-10-26
Packaged: 2019-05-13 09:46:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14746500
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ravenienne/pseuds/ravenienne
Summary: Matt is in a battle with the Defenders and the Avengers and somehow wakes up the next morning in Foggy's body. Stupid magic technology evil villains.





	1. Chapter 1

The battle was definitely more chaotic than Matt preferred. One downside to working in a team was the additional people to keep track of while fighting. And especially considering this was the first time the Defenders and Avengers were teaming up… well, let’s just say there were still some kinks to be worked out. Plus, this newest supervillain was weird. He couldn’t figure out how things had actually gotten this far considering the ‘evil genius’ didn’t seem to actually be that smart, although he hadn’t really figured out what his powers were. Some sort of advanced technology that ended up acting like sorcery? (They probably could have used Doctor Strange but he was out of the country.) The main thing this villain had going for him was that he could call up sludge-like creatures almost as quickly as the newly-formed Avengers/Defenders team could get them down.

Matt shook the distracting thoughts out of his head and kept fighting, pushing his exhaustion to the back of his mind. The good news was the sludgies -- as he was now thinking of them -- seemed to be slowing down, so hopefully the battle would be over soon. The bad news was that no matter how many times Captain America or any of the others yelled at them, the people of New York City had apparently become accustomed enough to heroic battles that they no longer experienced healthy fear, and the combination of gawking onlookers and couldn’t-be-bothered-to-go-around hustling evening commuters was starting to get in the way. In fact, even though Matt had explicitly told Foggy to get as far away as possible when he had unceremoniously left him in the middle of the coffee shop to change into his suit (he carried it with him at times now, although he hadn’t yet gone as far as wearing it under his clothes like some -- *cough* Spiderman -- did), he definitely was still sensing that familiar heartbeat and aftershave nearby.

“Look out!” was suddenly called from across the intersection, where three of the Avengers were fighting the actual supervillain (Matt hadn’t caught his name). Matt turned but sensed nothing until a concentrated ball of energy slammed into his forehead. He flew backwards a few feet, landing in an unceremonious heap.

His head was spinning as he heard a faint call of “we got him!” and then a familiar voice, much closer, called, “Ma-- sh-- Daredevil!”

Matt felt hands on him and he pushed them away at first, trying to get his uncooperative limbs to let him up so he could fight.

“It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s me. Hey, the battle’s over, they got him, even the weird creature things are… okay, ew, that looks gross… um, un-forming?”

“Daredevil, you okay?”

“Captain America,” Foggy whispered, awe in his voice.

Matt pushed himself up, trying to ignore Foggy’s hands. “I’m fine.”

Jessica and Luke came up beside the Captain, and Matt did his best not to sway on his feet, though Foggy was still trying to help support him. He was exhausted, and he ached, but he was fine, and he didn’t want to appear as anything but, not his front of his team...s.

“Thanks for the help on this one,” Rogers was saying. “The extra manpower was definitely needed. Do you want one of our doctors to look you over?”

Matt waved him off. “I’m fine, really, just a bit banged up. I’ve got someone I can call if I need to.”

At that point, Jessica spoke up. “We’ll make sure he gets home in one piece. Thanks, Captain.”

Matt suppressed a groan as Rogers walked away.

“I can take him home, so you both can keep helping with the clean up,” Foggy piped in.

“Foggy, you can’t-- people will see--” Matt began before Luke cut him off.

“Honestly, no one is paying attention. Now that the battle is over, any passing interest most of them had is gone, and those that are glancing over are mostly looking at the Avengers.”

“Here,” Jessica added, “We’ll guard this alley, you change quickly into your other clothes, and no harm done. You were just an injured bystander.”

Matt sighed. “Fine.”

xxXxx

Matt groaned as he slowly woke, squinting his eyes shut reflexively. He felt as though he had slept much longer than he had intended -- hadn’t his alarm gone off? It was Saturday, but he usually set it anyways, since his sleep rhythms could get out of sync so easily. He felt for his clock to check the time, but it wasn’t… had he knocked it off…?

Wait.

Matt opened his eyes and immediately gasped and closed them again. What--? Was that…? He rolled over onto his back and slowly cracked his eyes open again.

This time it wasn’t quite so painful, although it was still overwhelming. He was… was he really seeing? How could he possibly be seeing? He wasn’t sure how to process what he was seeing, though he assumed it must be the ceiling.

“I can see? How can I see?” he whispered. And realized that the voice that came out did not sound like his voice. He frowned. It sounded like… Foggy’s voice, actually. And, come to think of it, he hadn’t been paying attention before, but everything sounded far away and muffled, and his sense of smell seemed dampened like he had a cold.

He sat up and immediately closed his eyes as the weirdly shifting input made his head spin. Ugh. He didn’t even really remember what seeing meant, except in the abstract. He may have seen for nine years, but he had been completely and totally blind -- no light perception, or NLP, as the doctors called it -- for almost nineteen years at this point. How was he supposed to make sense of the input from his suddenly-working eyes? Well, not his eyes. As ludicrous as the idea was, the logical explanation was that he was somehow in Foggy’s body. Sitting up had also made him realize he was a bit... squishier than he was used to, which would fit with his theory. He sighed. Stupid magic technology evil villains.

And that was when he realized that if he was in Foggy’s body… odds were that Foggy was in his. “Crap.” Still keeping his eyes closed, he fumbled around on the nightstand for Foggy’s phone. He found it, and sent up a quick thank you prayer that his roommate liked to weirdly over-prepare. Currently, he was grateful that back when they were roommates, Foggy had set up his iPhone so that VoiceOver would turn on if the home button was triple-clicked.

_“Foggy, why would I need to use your phone?”_

_“I don’t know, Matty, but you can never be too prepared. Maybe we… get mugged, and I get knocked out, and your phone is stolen but mine isn’t for some reason, and you have to call 911!”_

_“...Foggy that’s a ridiculous scenario.”_

_“Don’t overthink it, just let me do this. What else am I gonna use the Accessibility shortcut for?”_

It was a bit awkward navigating the unfamiliar phone, but do-able, and soon Matt was calling his own number, and hoping Foggy would be able to locate it and pick it up. The phone rang for a while before he heard his own voicemail message and he hung up.

“Crap,” he said out loud. Okay. Think this through. He should probably try to get to Foggy. If he woke up alone, blind, disoriented, and with presumably all of Matt’s heightened senses… Crap. He could call Karen… who is still out of town on a case. Although he thinks she might be getting back soon. No way was he calling the Defenders. Jessica would never let him live this down. And besides, Foggy hardly knew them, he didn’t think he would want them to see him in this state.

That left him getting to his apartment on his own. He could do that, he’d done it plenty of times. And hadn’t Foggy stashed a spare cane for him here at some point, since he kept losing them? (Another case of Foggy being an over-prepared mother hen, for which he was now grateful.) It was in the closet by the front door, right?

Okay. So. Step one, stand up. Keeping his eyes firmly closed, Matt pushed himself to his feet with a groan. Being in a different body felt… weird, and his balance was all off. He hadn’t been in Foggy’s bedroom too many times, particularly in his new fancier apartment, but he knew the basic layout. He tripped once on something soft, probably clothes from last night, then reached a wall where he expected the dresser. He frowned. Too far right or too far left? He trailed along the wall to the right -- his best guess -- with one arm guarding in front of him, and pretty quickly found a dresser-shaped object. Top drawer -- underwear and socks, next down were soft-feeling t-shirts and pants. He grabbed a tee but kept searching drawers until he found -- yes, denim. He changed quickly then made his way out into the rest of the apartment. Now in more familiar territory, he moved more confidently as he finished getting ready, making a quick trip to the bathroom and then going to the front door to find shoes.

He was just opening the door to the front hall closet to search for the spare cane when he realized he couldn’t just go out like this. He could too easily run into someone Foggy knew; plenty of people could recognize him. What would they make of him walking around with a white cane, moving like he was blind? Because he was, effectively, right now. Matt was arguably more blind in Foggy’s body than he was in his own -- he had no idea how to process visual input anymore, those areas of his brain had probably long since been adapted for other tasks (and presumably this body swap somehow didn’t include his brain…? Stupid magic technology evil villains who follow weird science rules…), and he didn’t have the benefit of his heightened senses. Crap, again. Did Foggy keep sweatshirts in the hall closet or the bedroom closet? Or the dresser? Probably at least in the bedroom…

He eventually found a pile of folded sweatshirts on a shelf in the bedroom closet -- definitely not where he first looked. He grabbed the first one he found with a hood, hoping it didn’t have anything too distinctive on it, and put it on, pulling the hood over his head and as far forward as he could, hoping it would obscure his face some. He wished he knew where Foggy kept sunglasses. He also wished he knew what to do with long-ish hair since as soon as he had pulled the hood up the hair had started tickling his face and neck irritatingly.

Back to the hall closet, he found the spare cane folded up on another high shelf. He pulled it open and let the pieces click into place, then took a deep breath. Automatically, he tried to reach out with his senses, trying to determine if any of Foggy’s neighbors were around in the hallways, but of course all he could tell was that probably no one was walking down the immediate hallway. The walls of Foggy’s new apartment were thick though, and the hallway had a slightly thicker carpet than he was used to, so he might just not hear them.

Eyes still firmly shut, he finally slipped out the door, fumbling a bit with the keys he had found in the bowl by the door until he eventually got one to turn the deadbolt. He followed the hallway to the elevator, pressed the down button, and was immediately rewarded with a ding! and the sound of the doors sliding open. As he was pressing for the ground floor he heard a door closing and locking nearby, then a “hold it!” called out and footsteps running towards him. Caught in indecision, unsure whether he wanted to put up with company and the possibility of someone recognizing him, he ended up doing nothing but heard a breathless sigh as the man managed to get a hand into the doors and entered, huffing slightly.

“Oh, sorry,” the stranger said.

Matt only nodded, ignoring the question of which of the many possibilities the man might be apologizing to him for. It wasn’t an uncommon reaction from strangers -- sorry for his blindness? For asking something of him despite his blindness? Staring, possibly? Impossible and usually uninteresting to determine.

“Hey, did you just move in? I don’t think I recognize you,” the man asked.

“Uh, no, just visiting.” Matt gave a small smile, although he didn’t turn towards the man.

“Oh, you wouldn’t happen to be one of Foggy’s many relatives, would you? You look a bit alike.”

This time Matt’s smile was mostly genuine. “One of his cousins, actually.” Foggy’s giant, sprawling family could be convenient at times.

The elevator came to a stop and dinged.

“Oh, ground floor,” the man supplied -- helpfully, actually, since this elevator didn’t announce floors. Fancy apartment but couldn’t be bothered to keep up to ADA standards, apparently. Matt nodded and followed him out, heading straight ahead and following the carpet runner towards the front doors.

“Hey, do you need any help?”

“I’m all set, thanks,” Matt replied. Although once he had refused the help he now felt like he had to look completely competent and confident. Fortunately, the man went left while Matt went right once they were out the door to the building.

Out on the busy sidewalk, cane tapping before him, it suddenly hit him how… pleasant… this actually was. For nineteen years he had been inundated constantly by the sounds, smells, tastes, feel, of the city, dialed up way beyond what it should be. He had automatically known more about the people around him than most people would ever want to know, known more about the food carts he passed than anyone would ever want to know, been unwillingly privy to so many secrets over the years… But walking down the sidewalk today, his mind focused almost entirely on getting to Foggy as quickly as possible, it was relaxing to not have to filter away all the unnecessary details.

When fighting or surveiling, of course the details were necessary and useful. But in day-to-day life, he spent most of the time trying to ignore them, and both the extra stimulation if he tried to make use of it or if he just tried to let it wash over him, and the effort of filtering it out, tended to be a cause of his chronic headaches and not infrequent migraines. Often enough he found it easiest to only let in a minimal level of extra detail beyond what a normal person could hear and sense -- it would probably approximate to what someone legally blind but partially sighted or with low vision would know, meaning that often enough he did actually use his cane to navigate, even if he arguably didn’t technically need it.

Sure, it was slightly disconcerting to not have the option of letting it in, such as when he was fumbling for the crosswalk button or listening for traffic flow before crossing, but he was surprised at the ease with which he slipped into functioning as a “normal” person who was blind and NLP.

When he reached the front of the apartment building -- his building -- he paused for a moment and opened his eyes. He tilted his head back and aimed his eyes towards the sky, not completely trusting his voluntary control of his eyes. He didn’t really understand the input any better than he had back at the apartment, but on some level he was seeing the sky again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, I realized I forgot to check this off as a multi-chapter fic. It will be multiple chapters! Not sure of the total count yet though.


	2. Chapter 2

Stepping inside his apartment, it only taking two tries to successfully locate the extra key he had given Foggy (after the tension of him finding out about his nightly activities had eased) on the key ring, Matt listened carefully. He heard what sounded like muffled moans coming from his bedroom. Grateful for his intimate knowledge of his own apartment, he left the spare cane by the door -- next to his own -- and moved straight to his room.

The smell of bile met him as he paused in the doorway and spoke as quietly as he could. “Foggy, it’s me, Matt.”

The moaning paused, although the rustling sounds he could now hear didn’t. “Matt?” came the hesitant, whispered reply. “Why is it so…?”

He stepped slowly towards the bed. “I’m right here, just breathe. Focus on my voice. I’m going to touch you.” He carefully reached out and found an elbow first, then traced that back to a shoulder and then his back and started rubbing slow circles as Foggy continued to rock gently on the bed while his hands tried to cover his ears. “Focus on my voice and my hand. Just breathe. In and out. Let everything else filter out and away. Slow, deep breaths. In, one, two, three, and out, one, two, three.”

Matt kept it up for a good ten minutes as Foggy slowly began to calm down. Eventually, the rocking stopped.

“Matt, what’s going on?” he eventually asked. “I can’t… and it’s…” He let out a quick sob then took another deep, slow breath in, and back out.

“I, um, I think we somehow… switched bodies?” Matt answered hesitantly. “As bizarre as it is, it’s the only thing that seems to make sense. I guess maybe something from the fight yesterday did it.”

Foggy’s breath hitched again before he resumed his forced slow breaths.

“Here, um, let me…” Matt trailed off as he skirted around the edge of the bed to his nightstand on the other side, opening it and drawing out a pair of over-the-ear noise-cancelling headphones. They had cost a pretty penny, and they only did so much, but sometimes every little bit could help. He reached for Foggy, finding his hand and bringing the headphones towards it. “Put these on. The switch is on the bottom. It won’t block it out completely, but it’s better than nothing. I’ve got some ear plugs in the bathroom too that you can put on underneath.”

Several minutes later, Matt had situated Foggy on the couch, earplugs and headphones on, and Foggy was seeming to slowly improve. Matt stripped the bed and tossed it into the washing machine -- not for the first time saying a quick prayer of thanks for actually having an apartment with a washer and dryer -- and retrieved cleaning supplies from under the kitchen sink. He set to work cleaning up the vomit from around the bed, hoping he wasn’t missing any spots. He knew the smell of cleaning supplies, even the ones he had, wouldn’t be pleasant for Foggy’s nose right now, but it was still preferable to the vomit.

Once he was done, he went back to the couch and sat next to Foggy. “How are you doing?” he asked quietly.

Foggy let out a soft snort.

“Sorry, silly question.” Matt leaned back against the cushions, trying to think of what to do next. He had been through this himself, even if it was many years ago, shouldn’t he have some idea? But it had taken practice and time, for him, along with determination and some incentives by Stick that he didn’t think Foggy would appreciate, even if they had gotten the job done for him. Plus he had been a kid, and kids adapted better, right?

“It’s okay, I’m okay,” Foggy eventually spoke up. “I can hear your, your heart… it’s… soothing, steady. Oh, wow, this is…” He breathed deeply a few more times. “So this is… these are your heightened senses?”

“Um, yeah, I guess so.”

“You call this a world on fire?!”

“I--”

“Sorry.” Foggy took a deep breath in, then let it out slowly. “I’m not… I’m not really mad. I just, didn’t realize. Geez, Matt. You can make sense of all of this?”

“...Yeah?”

“And this all happened when you were a kid? Nine years old? Matt--”

“Well, kids adapt better anyway,” Matt interrupted, squirming.

“When you said you could see--”

“--In a manner of speaking,” Matt put in.

“--I didn’t realize...” Foggy drew in a breath to speak, then suddenly froze. “Wait, Matt, if I’m… then you’re… Are you okay?”

“Don’t worry about me, I’m fine, Foggy.”

“But if you’re in my body, then you can see, right?”

“Yeah, kind of.”

“Kind of?”

Matt fidgeted, then sighed. “Foggy, I’ve been blind for something like two thirds of my life, with no visual input. Zero. I don’t… Yes, my eyes -- your eyes -- are suddenly working, and sending signals to my brain. Which I guess is somehow mine? What this says about the whole mind-body connection, I don’t know. All I know is that just like if I had been blind from something curable this whole time, like cataracts or something, and I was suddenly cured, I’m not magically able to make sense of everything. I can’t make sense of anything, really, I just know there’s input. It’s a bit disorienting. I’ve just been ignoring it.”

“How did you get over here?”

Matt snorted. “I’ve been blind for nineteen years. I think I’ve learned a thing or two about navigation. I don’t use my senses to their full extent all the time. And I found that spare cane you had at your place and used that.” He stood up. “Do you think you’re ready to try some food? I’ll make something really bland. Plain toast, maybe? Or plain oatmeal. If you can manage one of those you could try plain scrambled eggs.”

“I guess I’ll try toast?”

Matt nodded, then caught himself. “Uh, okay.”

“You just nodded, right?”

Matt chuckled. “Yeah, sorry, this is weird. I’ve never interacted with another blind person before.” He stood up and went into the kitchen to make toast for both of them.

“So I guess you’re… you’re actually blind now?” Foggy asked, tentatively.

Matt hesitated. “Well… I was actually blind before. My eyes don’t work, as you’ve probably noticed.”

“Yep, noticed that,” Foggy quipped.

“Well, yeah. But even with my… abilities… the heightened senses, and being able to fill in information with those, it’s not…” He trailed off again. “I described it like an impressionistic painting before, right?” He gave a small chuckle. “I’ve never actually seen an impressionistic painting, but I learned about the movement, and the descriptions sound right. If you somehow translated what I sense into vision, my visual acuity would probably still be legally blind, or at least not 20/20. It’d be blurry, I guess.”

“...But you aren’t translating it into vision?” Foggy clarified, a questioning note in his voice.

“No, just, sighted people are so visual I don’t know how else to describe it. I don’t form a picture, not anymore. I haven’t done that in many years. I just… know things.”

“But right now, you can’t.”

“Well, no.” Matt picked out the toast on autopilot when the toaster popped, placing it on the plates he had already retrieved from his cabinet. He buttered one for himself and brought the other for Foggy.

“Here, listen,” he said, placing the plate on the coffee table as close to right in front of Foggy as he could approximate, letting it rattle quietly. “Plate should be right in front of you.”

“Thanks.”

They ate quietly for a couple of minutes. Matt assumed from the lack of retching noises that Foggy was doing okay enough, although he wasn’t sure how quickly he was eating. 

“Have you tried… seeing?” Foggy eventually asked.

“Like, with your eyes?”

“Yeah.”

“I’ve mostly been keeping them shut.” Matt fingered the remaining bites of his toast. He felt surprisingly vulnerable having this kind of a conversation without being able to hear his friend’s heartbeat, or smell his sweat, or glean the other many little tiny details he was used to. “It was too overwhelming. And when I moved, everything spun. Honestly, the little bit of light I’m getting through the eyelids is weird enough. I kind of forgot that happened, or didn’t notice as a kid.”

“Will you try again?”

“Right now?”

“Yeah. You haven’t seen yourself since you were nine.”

“I won’t understand, though. There’s no point.”

“Just try? I’ll help you.”

Matt hesitated, then finally said, “Okay.”

“Here, do you want to put your hands on my -- your -- face first? Will that help?”

Matt swallowed. “I don’t know, maybe?”

“Well, try it,” Foggy insisted. “Here.”

Matt put his plate down and felt Foggy’s hands find his arms, following those down to his hands, then pick those up and place them on his shoulders.

“Just like in college, right?” Foggy said.

Slowly, Matt opened his eyes. He knew there were shapes, lines, in front of him. Gradations of light. Colors, although he couldn’t have placed names to them. He let his hands trace up Foggy’s -- his -- neck, and turned his focus towards the movement. It was a bit hard to keep his eyes still and where he wanted them to be, although he thought Foggy’s muscle memory might be helping a bit, but he kept them in the general vicinity as he let his hands roam over this face, his face. 

He could feel familiar features, although the angle was weird, and he somewhat matched what he felt to the rough shapes he saw, but it didn’t really make sense as a whole. And when he pulled his arms away, he wasn’t totally sure that he was still putting the right visual features to the ones he had felt. He shook his head slightly and then gave a small gasp, shutting his eyes tightly and bringing his hands up to cover them.

“What? What’s wrong? Are you okay?” Foggy asked anxiously.

“Yeah, sorry, sorry. I just shook my head with my eyes still open. Made me dizzy.”

“But did you… did you see… you?”

Matt sighed. “I guess? I’m sorry Foggy. It’s just been too long, it doesn’t really make sense to me. Like, I can see it, I just can’t translate it onto what it means.”

“It’s okay, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to pressure you. I just don’t know how long this will last, I didn’t want you to miss out.”

Matt cleared his throat. “Speaking of. Now that you’ve got a bit of a handle on, well, things, maybe we should try to figure out what happened and if we can do anything about it.”

“How?”

“Well, the only people I can think of that would have any idea what to do are the Avengers. Luke has Steve Rogers’ number, so I guess ask him?”

“Matt.”

“What?”

“Luke has Steve Rogers’ number?! You’ve been holding out on me?!”

“It’s for work, for team-ups! And besides, it only happened recently.”

“All I can say is if I go through all this and don’t get to meet Captain America…”

Matt chuckled. “I’ll do my best.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I originally planned on Foggy getting a bit madder, but then he just, wasn't? ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯


	3. Chapter 3

It only took vague answers and minimal prodding to get Luke to give up the number. Then Matt and Foggy argued over what exactly they were telling Steve over the phone and what exactly to ask for. Foggy wanted to get them to send someone to the apartment, but Matt was reluctant to give up his address over the phone, and wary of doing so period without speaking to them in person and impressing upon them the importance of secrecy. And possibly the importance of not telling Tony Stark. Plus they didn’t even know his identity yet, which could be a whole thing in itself. Matt also thought that they might have to examine them or treat them or whatever they were going to do at the tower. Foggy was understandably hesitant about stepping outside just yet, with his currently rather shaky control, and Matt agreed that standard transportation would probably not be the best way to go unless they had no other option.

Eventually they came up with something of a compromise. They would have Foggy -- in Matt’s body, with his voice -- make the call and explain that he was experiencing what he thought might be a delayed effect of something from the fight, and ask for their help. He would then say he was sending an associate down to the tower to explain everything and determine the best way to proceed from there. Matt -- in Foggy’s body -- would go down to the tower and explain everything to Steve, requesting that they loop in only whoever was absolutely vital. Then they would go from there.

Ten minutes later, after a sufficiently awkward phone call between Foggy-in-Matt’s-body and Captain America, complete with quiet fanboy-ing on Foggy’s part, Matt was stepping back out the door with his usual cane in hand. He had given Foggy a quick tutorial on the basics of operating a phone with VoiceOver and left him with a few things to listen to, then pulled his hood back up and donned a pair of the largest spare sunglasses he had in his apartment.

Between his GPS and his own knowledge of Manhattan, he was able to navigate to the tower with relative ease, although he couldn’t say that he enjoyed the increasing amount of tourists crowding the sidewalks as he got closer. They tended to spend more time looking around at the sights than looking forward at where they were going, and more than once he was clipped by one of them. Still, he made it to the tower and found an entrance by listening for the sound of doors opening.

Waiting just inside, as instructed, the first to approach him was a security guard.

“Sir, this area isn’t open for tourists, do you have a pass?”

“No, I’m waiting for someone,” Matt answered politely, turning a wide smile towards the approaching footsteps. It felt a bit strange, trying to use his own charming smile with someone else’s face, and being unusually limited in his ability to gauge their reaction.

“I’m sorry but you can’t wait in here, sir. I’m going to have to ask you to wait outside.”

“I understand, but I was instructed to wait in here. Mr. Rogers was going to send someone--”

“Mr. Rogers? Sir--”

They were interrupted by a cool female voice. “Is there a problem here, sirs?”

“I was just asking this gentleman to leave,” the security guard answered first.

“As I explained,” Matt began, “I was instructed to wait inside for someone to meet me.”

“Of course, are you Mr. Nelson? I was sent to collect you. Do you have an ID so I can verify?”

“Yes, of course.” Matt switched his cane to his left hand and reached inside a pocket for Foggy’s wallet, flipping it open so the drivers’ license was visible. Fortunately, the woman didn’t comment on why a man who was blind was carrying a valid drivers’ license, but simply dismissed the guard and offered her elbow to Matt.

She took him up an elevator, down a hallway, and into what Matt imagined was probably a conference room or something similar. He missed Foggy’s descriptions in that moment. She put his hand on the back of a chair and then left, telling him to wait there for Mr. Rogers.

It felt like time moved slower than usual as he waited. The floor he was on was quiet, and he didn’t have his usual ability to eavesdrop on everything around him. He was almost considering getting his phone out to listen to a book for a bit when the door to the room finally opened and someone stepped in.

They didn’t say anything at first, or move further in, and after a few moments of silence Matt spoke up.

“Hello?”

“Yes, I’m sorry.” Definitely Captain America’s voice, but he sounded oddly… flustered? “I just… well I know of Franklin Nelson, but I didn’t think you were blind. You took me by surprise.”

Right, yes, he should have expected that they would do a quick, basic background check. He would know that Franklin Nelson wasn’t blind. Which meant he was probably trying to calculate possible ways this could be a trap, or something similar.

“No, I’m sorry. I should have made sure to have… my associate… warn you on the phone. It relates to what we need your help with. But you’re right, I’m not usually blind.” He paused for a moment, gathering his thoughts. “This will take some explanation. And to be frank, I need to be certain that I only divulge that information in a secure location, and that only people who need to know the information are told.”

“I can understand that.” His voice took on a thoughtful tone. “The difficulty is that in order to bring you into a secure area, and to minimize the number of people involved, I need to be certain I can trust you as well. And a phone conversation with… your associate… even if I did recognize his voice, it isn’t quite enough.”

Matt nodded. “What if I told you that I know that Natasha Romanov was interested in sparring with Daredevil and the Iron Fist? And that while Danny Rand was quite eager, Daredevil was a little wary of the idea. That doesn’t seem like the kind of thing anybody else would have any reason to know.”

Steve sighed. “It’s a start. I’m sorry, I’m not trying to be difficult. I do want to help you, if you need it. I’ve just also been told lately that I can be a bit too trusting when people say they need help.”

“What if you brought in just a couple of others? As security, I guess.”

“Well, speaking of Natasha, her and Clint Barton are around today. Would you be willing to speak to them as well?”

Slowly Matt nodded. “Yeah, that could work.”

A few minutes later, Natasha and Clint had quietly joined them, Steve had dismissed the couple of guards he had originally brought with him, and Matt was holding onto Steve’s arm as the three of them led him to another location. The elevator took them up and when they came out onto the new floor it smelled faintly of plastic, rubber, leather, and sweat. They walked through a series of large, echoing rooms -- Matt tripping slightly once on a lip in the floor and Steve somewhat comically apologizing profusely -- and then a short way down a hallway and into another small room. This one was a bit cozier than the conference room, with a carpet and armchairs, one of which Matt sank into gratefully when he was led to it. The day had barely begun and it had already been long, and there was quite a lot left to do.

“This room should be suitably secure,” Natasha spoke up once they were all seated. “We won’t tell anyone outside the three of us unless it becomes necessary to help you -- in which case we will tell you beforehand -- or it becomes necessary for our own safety. So, talk.”

Matt hesitated, unsure of where to begin. Then he sighed. “Up until now, Daredevil has been the only Defender that you have not known the identity of. He has reasons -- good reasons -- for not wanting his identity known. Not even by the Avengers.”

“We already stated that we would not tell anyone else unless it became necessary,” Natasha reminded him. Her voice was flat, but Matt thought he might have caught a hint of amusement. But perhaps he was imagining things.

“Yes, sorry. Um…” He took a deep breath in. “Daredevil is Matthew Murdock. He’s--”

“As in Nelson and Murdock? As in the blind lawyer from Hell’s Kitchen? The one who saved a man when he was nine years old and went blind in the process? As in one of the lawyers that took down Fisk?” Clint interrupted.

“...Yes?” How did this guy know who he was?

“Awesome!”

“You expect us to just believe, without proof, that a blind man is a vigilante?” Steve asked.

“Hey!” Clint protested, while Matt bristled slightly.

“I think if I were lying I’d be able to come up with a better story than that.”

“Steve, Murdock is Daredevil,” Natasha cut in. “He’s right, it’s a ridiculous story otherwise. And it fits with what we know of the firm. And somehow that relates to Mr. Nelson’s… uncharacteristic blindness. Something from the battle yesterday… But it can’t be that his partner’s blindness was suddenly transferred onto him, because he moves far too well for someone newly blinded. Is it too far-fetched to think that somehow Murdock is stuck in Nelson’s body? And I would think vice versa as well?”

Matt gaped, and no one else said a word. Eventually he pulled himself back together and said, “Yeah, that’s… that’s… pretty much it.”

“But then, shouldn’t you be able to see?” Steve asked, sounding skeptical.

“Didn’t I say he’d been blind since he was a kid? Making his eyes work won’t make him suddenly able to make sense of visual input,” Clint explained.

This guy understood a weird amount about him, Matt thought, then spoke up. “Um, yeah, that’s basically it. Technically I can see, these eyes are working, but I can’t make sense of what I’m seeing, and it’s mostly distracting.”

“Do you mind explaining how you…? Because that’s still pretty… I mean I know we live in a world of superheroes now but…” Steve seemed oddly flustered.

Matt eventually interrupted him, ending his floundering. “The accident that blinded me, it involved a truck carrying -- illegally -- radioactive chemicals. Some splashed in my eyes, which is what damaged them, but it also somehow seemed to heighten all of my other senses. It didn’t immediately or automatically make up for not being able to see, but eventually with training I learned how to make sense of the additional input. I’m able to use that information to fight.”

“But you’re not… faking, right?” Clint’s voice sounded hesitant.

Matt sighed, trying not to be frustrated. Why was this always the conclusion people leapt to? “No, I’m not faking. I really am blind. My eyes don’t work. I can’t… read a computer screen, or see billboards, or discern colors, or read print, or a whole host of other things. Well, technically I can sometimes feel out the shapes of letters on a printed page if it’s printed a certain way, but it takes forever and isn’t very practical. I can’t see light at all, which can confuse my circadian rhythms. Plus, using my abilities constantly for things like navigating can get exhausting. It’s a lot of information to sift through.”

“Right, sorry,” Clint said apologetically. “I didn’t mean to doubt you. I was just excited about another superhero with a disability.”

Matt’s question must have been clear on his face because Clint quickly explained, “I’m Deaf, or hard of hearing according to some people. Technology can make up for a lot, especially when Tony Stark is your friend, but it can’t make up for everything. It sounds like your abilities are kind of similar.”

Matt smiled. “Technology definitely helps.”

Natasha cleared her throat. “Perhaps we should return to the slightly more pressing problem?”

“Right, yes,” Steve said.

“Wait, so if Foggy Nelson is in your body, and you have his sight but not his ability to interpret visual information, then he has your heightened senses but not your ability to sort through or use them?” Clint asked with a tone of dawning horror.

“Yes, to put it succinctly,” Matt answered grimly. “I helped him with some of the basics of control to stop it constantly overwhelming him, and left him in my apartment to come here. But it does complicate matters a bit.”

“Okay.” Steve’s tone was thoughtful but commanding. “My suggested plan of action is to send a car -- a quiet car -- to pick Foggy up, since I think it likely we will need Tower resources to help. I imagine you will want to tag along on that trip, Matt. I also think we need to loop in Bruce Banner -- our resident medical and scientific expert -- and we will probably need Doctor Strange’s help as well, given how this likely happened."

"I thought Stark was your science guy," Matt put in.

"He's more of an engineer," Clint explained, and Matt nodded.

"Does that seem reasonable, Matt?” Steve asked.

“Yeah, okay.”

“Great.” There were rustling sounds as everyone stood, Matt following suit. “I’ll call a car and let’s get to it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've never tried to write the Avengers characters in this type of setting, so hopefully they don't come off completely strange.


	4. Chapter 4

A couple of hours later, Matt and Foggy were situated in a quiet room -- the quietest they could find -- and they had been left with Bruce Banner and Doctor Strange, who were each examining them in their own way. Steve, Natasha, and Clint were nearby, but had been shooed outside to keep them out of the way and to hopefully avoid overwhelming Foggy with stimulation. As it was, Matt had a feeling that Foggy was barely keeping it together. He could hear his deep, purposefully slow and controlled breathing in the bed next to him, and he kept wanting to reach over and grab his friend’s hand and reassure him.

“Matt?” the tentative voice eventually asked.

Immediately Matt reached a hand over, fumbling for Foggy’s along his side, and gripped it hard.

“It’s okay, buddy,” Matt said, trying for a smile even though Foggy couldn’t see it. “They’ll figure it out. Hopefully not too much longer.”

“Yeah,” was Foggy’s only response, but he squeezed Matt’s hand back.

As it turned out, ‘not too much longer’ was quite accurate. Once he had finished examining them, it didn’t take Doctor Strange long to determine a way to reverse the effects of the spell, or whatever it had been. He requested Bruce’s assistance with a couple of things, but within a matter of minutes, and with hardly a warning, Matt abruptly found himself back in his own body.

For a moment, the sounds, smells, tastes, _feeling_ , overwhelmed him as it all came rushing back. He took a few deep breaths, centered himself, and then focused on the familiar heartbeat next to him, beating just slightly fast.

“Hey, you okay?” Foggy asked him.

Matt gave him a tiny smile. “Yeah, yeah I’ll be fine. Are _you_ okay?”

“Matt… Yeah, of course I’m okay. I just…” He trailed off, then turned towards the two Avengers still in the room, who apparently had already moved on to discussing something else together -- something to do with the creator of the sludgies, it sounded like. “Are we good to go now?”

“Yes, you should be,” Doctor Strange answered. “Don’t hesitate to contact one of us should anything else arise, of course. Though I don’t expect anything will, not from this incident.”

“Great, thanks,” Foggy said, then turn back towards Matt and brushed his arm along Matt’s hand. Almost automatically, Matt stood and gripped Foggy’s elbow, then took his cane back as it was handed to him. He gave a small wave to the Avengers as they passed, and breathed a sigh of relief as they got on the elevator.

They were mostly quiet on the walk back to Hell’s Kitchen -- towards his apartment, Matt realized about halfway there. Foggy gave him directions and the like as needed (“Step up” or “Curb ahead”), and occasionally filled in details of the sights around them, but for the most part he seemed lost in thought. Matt let him think, feeling a bit nervous about what might be coming next but afraid to speak up and ask what was on Foggy’s mind.

Eventually they reached Matt’s apartment, and both collapsed onto the sofa, still without saying a word. Matt was just wondering if he _should_ break the silence when Foggy finally spoke up.

“I feel terrible, Matt.”

Startled, all Matt could reply was, “What?”

“I’ve been mad at you for lying to me for… I mean, I mostly got over it with the whole Fisk thing, but you knew I was still a little peeved. And a lot of it had to do with the… you know… night job stuff, but… A lot of it had to do with me thinking you lied about how blind you were for our entire friendship. I don’t even think I realized how much was stemming from that until today. But you…”

Matt frowned. “But I what?”

“Well, you really are blind.”

“Foggy, I told you that,” Matt said, confused.

“Well, yeah, I guess, but you… I didn’t really get it.”

Matt sighed. “It’s hard to explain. I didn’t know how.”

“Yeah, I… Well, I guess what I’m saying is I think I get it now. Or at least better than before. And I’m really sorry.”

“I’m sorry, too,” Matt replied, feeling the beginnings of relief, of a weight lifting off his chest, though he was afraid to trust the feeling too much. He was still guilty of so much, of course.

“Matt, don’t do that, you’ve apologized so many times already. Stop feeling guilty.”

“I’m not.”

“Uh huh. Sure.”

Matt smiled.


End file.
